


I Spy...

by izumi2



Series: List of Questions (Civil War Team Iron Man) [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: An argument can be made about unrealiable narrator, Civil War Team Iron Man, Not Natasha Friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izumi2/pseuds/izumi2
Summary: Tony has a little revelation about one Natasha Romanoff in the wake of the SHIELD info dump.Sometimes, habits are hard to break. And Natasha has plenty of habits.~*~"...lying and spying takes its toll.”~Anew(Chapter 5, by IViv).~*~





	I Spy...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IViv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IViv/gifts), [Ana (Anafandom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anafandom/gifts).



> There CAN be arguments about unreliable narrator, didn't realize until I finished that I what I wrote is pretty much the definition of...

_**Why would Natasha go along with the info dump?** _

Tony had a problem. There, first step towards recovery is admitting that you have a problem, right?

To be more specific: he was pretty sure he had PTSD – as in, the only uncertainty by now is the lack of a diagnosis from an actual professional – and this was interfering with everything. His personal life, – he still felt guilty about almost having the armor attacking Pepper in their bed of all places – his professional life – he never missed a SI deadline by accident, when Tony misses it; it was for a reason and even his Avenging thingy. He was a consultant for SHIELD not the Avengers, well… when SHIELD was still a thing.

The billionaire frowned. He still couldn’t understand what Natasha and Steve were thinking. When such a global intelligence organization like SHIELD becomes compromised you don’t compromise it even more by throwing the dirty laundry in the wind. HYDRA was in there so they could pull the same strings SHIELD was pulling but to be naïve enough to think that SHIELD was their only stronghold? Tony was willing to bet that SHIELD was convenient because… well…how hard it is to infiltrate an organization with the same work ethics – if not end goals – that they themselves had? Aside from that, it i-was an organization that dealt with highly sensitive information, some of which HYDRA could or could not have had access already. To take the chance that they already knew everything that SHIELD knew ‘so what the hell, at least now the entire world would know’ too was…

Tony has yet to understand the logic. If it was to permanently close SHIELD’s doors in a way that they couldn’t open them anymore why not just clear the vault? Delete all the files and make SHIELD into a trap to anyone that would want to infiltrate it. To be honest, that’s what he did when he found out about Stane. It would be ridiculous to think that no one in the company knew the crap that was going on behind his back so Tony made a front, a bait and just waited to see who would be taking it. It weeded out the most obvious and exposed the thread, all he needed to do was pull it to see who else was holding the other end.

He digressed. Shaking his head, Tony went for another cup of coffee, ignoring the microwave clock that read 5 am and ignoring that he had yet to even see his bedroom’s door.

The inventor probably shouldn’t have started his day by saying – in his own mind or not – that he had a problem. It didn’t bode well for the rest of it. Did it count that technically for him it was still yesterday? Well, it certainly didn’t bode well for the rest of the day. And he still had to answer Nat’s email about the call of arms of the Avengers to root out HYDRA.

He was just so absurdly busy with SI, Iron Man that was still finding the occasional SI weapons cache, the work with the Arc Reactor, trying to find new applications for Badassium, work with Bruce, consulting hours and now rescuing SHIELD agents all over the world that were still mid-mission when the info dump happened. That last one was giving him nightmares, especially the deep undercover agents in North Korea, Russia and China. Those people were **_not_** kind to spies.

He didn’t even have the time to go through the sea of SHIELD files for himself yet. Tony just had JARVIS screen and delete the personal data to try and mitigate the danger of SHIELD agents still on field. Priorities first, right?

And all that and Natasha still calls him to take out HYDRA? ‘Take out’ not ‘find’. How does she even know where to look f-, Tony froze. He didn’t want to think like that of Natasha but…it would have been infinitely safer, more obvious and simply honorable to indeed delete all SHIELD files. Even if Rogers was the one to give the idea – no one tells him shit in this life, Tony still didn’t know if that idiocy was Natasha’s or Steve’s – Natasha agreed and did the deed. Having worked for intelligence gathering for most of her life and Natasha didn’t know the repercussions? Not only to the field agents still out there but now every single person that SHIELD has ever taken a speckle of interest was vulnerable. Ready and set to die of exposure the longer the Iron Legion took to find and recover them.

If Nat didn’t know, then the Black Widow was just smokescreen, a front, propaganda, the person that didn’t live up to the legend but if she did know…she just **_had_** to know, but…if she knew…what possible gain could she have? Tony read her file, he knew her background, SHIELD gave her a clean slate and she was the one to destroy the Red Room program and yet Tony himself never even heard of them so she did it without throwing the whole thing on the front pages. Why couldn’t or wouldn’t she burn SHIELD to the ground instead of flashing the world, on Rogers’ say so or not?

And here’s what Tony was struggling to accept about what Natasha was getting out of the mess: leverage. That’s what Natasha would be able to gain by dumping those files, **_double_** leverage at that.

How much it grated that the great Black Widow was unable to recognize one of the Red Room’s closest allies right under her nose? Romanoff was trying to ‘clean the red off her ledger’ and thought she was doing good in SHIELD. Only it turns out that not even she was able to say which missions helped people and which missions were for HYDRA.

Natasha wasn't a good enough hacker to get  ** _all_** SHIELD files. The only way to access those was if Fury and that Pierce guy got their info and scans simultaneously. Tony saw the security footage, if only to understand why there were videos of his torture in Afghanistan on YouTube. If given enough time, Tony probably would be able to crack them but manipulating Fury and Pierce at the same time into doing something like this? Not even Natasha was that good.

Now she didn’t have to be. Natasha felt vulnerable and used, probably for the first time since the Red Room and now not only she got even but nothing was hidden from her. It was no longer protected by servers, although most of it was behind encryption, Natasha was skilled enough to bypass those, she could access whatever information she wanted whenever she wanted. **_Leverage_**.

With a sharp breath Tony remembered her Congress hearing. He thought nothing of it last week. Actually he was half-way amused and even cracked a joke that it still didn’t hold a candle to his own Senate hearing four years back. Sure, that was before he found out about the info dump and before he saw the results of cover ops becoming compromised by external influence. But now…

_“You won’t arrest us, you won’t arrest any of us…because you need us.”_

At the time, Tony could only think that Natasha had some balls. Without SHIELD… hiding her? Whatever they did to clean her record, she was just a former KGB assassin that became a SHIELD assassin which may or may not have contributed to HYDRA plans…yikes. US would truly need to be crazy to just let it all slide.

She had no protection, clout or reservation whatsoever and yet she still went and challenged the Congress into arresting her. Because they needed her? Tony thought so too: that she was one of the best fighters he ever saw, together with Clint? Well, there weren’t many completely normal people with no Enhancements – tech or otherwise – that would manage not to die in the Chitauri Invasion.

But now his mind was giving him a new insight. Something clicked. A new possibility, an alternative answer, there is another way that her words could be interpreted.

What if Natasha was certain that they wouldn’t arrest her because she had already destroyed their primary defense? Sure there is FBI and CIA, but unlike SHIELD, they don’t recruit foreign assassins promising them a completely clean slate inside US of all countries as long as they perform missions for them. In how many more shady dealings was SHIELD involved into that CIA and FBI wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole? And therefore that they would only have a passing knowledge of? Is that what this was? Natasha crippled them so now US needed all hands on deck, didn’t matter how soaked in blood they were? **_Leverage_**.

“Sir!” Tony faintly heard JARVIS’ alarmed voice, “Your readings indicate the beginnings of a heart attack, I will commence emergency protocols and alert Colonel Rhodes, his latest point of contact is closer than Ms. Potts’.”

JARVIS was saying something else, something about a phone call, but Tony embraced the darkness almost gratefully.

~*~

When he woke up it was to the annoyingly familiar beeping sound and interior of a hospital room. The spacious and completely white or off-white walls made him groan which alerted his three companions.

“Tony!” three different people exclaimed in unison but Pepper was the first to reach him and warm arms were surrounding him. A little too warm since Extremis but still with that Carolina Herrera perfume she wears since he had first met her.

The familiarity of it slowed the beeping down, “What happened, Tones?”

“How are you feeling, boss?” at each new voice, Tony would calm down a little more.

“Is your sternum aching?” Pepper moved just enough to stare worriedly at his chest.

The new version of Extremis healed it alright but since this was a quasi-experimental procedure, doctors – and Bruce – still felt better if he kept the visits to test it at a more or less weekly basis, now that the year mark was passed they went to monthly.

“No, not the, I feel fine, guys.” That was clearly the wrong thing to say.

“Sure, because people that are fine collapse at 6 am with symptoms of a heart attack.” The angry newcomer made such a silent entrance that Tony only realized that Bruce was in the room when he was almost right beside the bed.

“Ok, let’s all calm down.” Rhodey turned to the billionaire, “Earlier today, JARVIS called me and said that you were _en route_ to the hospital and that his scans caught extremely accelerated heartbeat. He was afraid that it was a heart attack and somehow related to the surgery to remove the shrapnel. The doctors ruled it out but after analyzing JARVIS’ scans they concluded that at about quarter to six your blood pressure went through the roof. The most that they can say is that it was stress and a possible panic attack.”

“I thought that they had gotten better, Tony.” Pepper took his hand.

“They have, this was something else.”

“Does it have to do with Romanoff?”

“What?” Tony blanched at Bruce.

“JARVIS told us that you said something about ‘not talking to Romanoff’ before passing out, since he wasn’t sure what you meant, JARVIS just blocked her access to you.”

Tony swallowed with some difficulty and stared at the only four people that never stabbed in the back, that didn’t get close because he had something they wanted.

“Look, I had a thought and can you guys listen to it and either agree or tell me I’m crazy?”

“What happened?” Rhodey sat back down on the chair that he was occupying until then.

“Remember a week ago when I began to extract all the dozens of burned SHIELD agents?”

~*~

“Ok, you can patch her through.” Tony gestured to closest sensor and JARVIS allowed the call to ring, against Pepper’s wishes and much to Happy’s, Rhodey’s and Bruce’s concern.

 _“Tony, you’re a hard man to catch.”_ As always, Natasha was steady, low voiced, almost flirty actually.

Tony was an idiot.

How could he have fallen for the oldest trick in the book? Not that after jabbing a needle to his neck with a chemical supposedly to give him a fighting chance against Palladium, completely ignorant of what possible measures he took himself, Natasha would think that he trusted her. But in the last two years the woman was steadily becoming, or at least showing, that she was more comfortable around him.

Perhaps that was true enough. Before his little insight, Tony was lowering his guards around her, perhaps not personally but he thought that he would be able to trust that Black Widow would have his back as far as Avenging went and realizing that, Natasha was responding in kind. Was it because she saw that now he wouldn’t even notice if she lunged? What a joke.

“Yeah, well, SI is taking more time than usual this quarter.” He kept his own voice a little distracted, not unlike the other times Natasha called for one reason or the other. Was she taking advantage of it as well?

_“No worries, so I guess that JARVIS also didn’t pass the message that the Avengers are assembling again, I also couldn’t contact Dr. Banner either.”_

“Hum, I thought that the Avengers were no longer a thing…?” he kept just the slightest hint of insecurity and let her take it how she wished, “And Brucie is actually helping me with a few projects, for Science!”

The spy scoffed, seemly good naturedly, but how would he even know the difference?

_“The Avengers are still necessary. With HYDRA revealing itself a threat, Steve is assembling the team. We need to find a way to contact Thor and get Dr. Banner too, I know he is staying with you.”_

Bruce sent a sharp, almost green-tinted stare, mouthing the word ‘no’.

“Look, Nat,” the inventor kept his voice mostly open but tense, not a hard task to pretend the last one, “I really want to join you guys but I’m swamped. I am still finding SI missiles where there shouldn’t have any and I’m still trying to recall all the ones sold legally. Needless to say, they don’t want to give them back doesn’t matter the number I put in the end of the paper, SI weapons is still the best in the market.

If the rumors are truth, Rand Corporations are catching up quickly, at least in the weapons divisions so in a few more years I should be able to buy it all back as long I give them a fat enough check to buy Rand stuff but for now I really need to keep an eye on things just in case. And all that as Iron Man, I still need to maintain the War Machine as an agreement with the military, me as Tony Stark. Not to mention that SI is in the middle of expansion plans.” he snorted in derision that wasn’t all that false. Partially because it was a genuine emotion and partially because he wanted to keep alive the illusion that he still trusted the assassin. ‘Trusted the assassin’…could he have been any **_more_** naïve?

“Pepper will have my head if I just ditch it all. I mean, I could do that from time to time when I was still CEO because I was still designing things that go boom and still fulfilling deadlines and that was pretty much anyone in the board cared about and after almost ten years with me, Pepper knew how to operate it all if I just went out the back door. Now that we are revamping the whole thing, I’m pretty sure that everybody involved is ready to commit murder if there is any slacking. I’m really sorry, but I just don’t have the time.”

Tony excelled at it: talk a whole lot without really saying anything. Although delivered in a heartfelt way, which would indicate emotional investment not to mention trust, nothing that he just said was such a big announcement to anyone with access to news, internet or radio. SI was almost monopolizing headlines after all.

The silence didn’t last long and Tony could only think that Natasha was paying the barest attention necessary. Would she? Dumb question, of she would, but was she?

 _“Well, you can always join us later, Tony.”_ Her tone was casually inviting and Tony faltered. A firm hand on his shoulder had him staring into Rhodey’s eyes.

Tony knew that if he just went ahead, his friends would support him but…if he was right, if his paranoia paid off…

“Sorry, Natasha but I already have my hands full. I will pass the message along to Bruce but to be honest he is quite the hard man to catch these days too. Ever since he bought more stock and saved STAR Labs from nearing bankruptcy with his projects – that are coming along quite nicely – and he became the majority shareholder, Pepper suggested that he re-brand the whole thing into Banner Labs atop of everything else.”

Again: blabbing and not a single novelty in sight. But somehow Tony didn’t think that Natasha would read Futura or Smithsonian. The billionaire nodded to Happy that made a show of clearing his throat, interrupting whatever the spy was saying about the Quinjets…?

“Boss, your three o’clock is here and Ms. Potts will arrive in fifty minutes for the flight to Tokyo and the meeting with the rep of the Yashida group.”

“Hey, Hapster! Ok, I think I already finished the last schematics. You know I think I should just hire you as my PA and give you a raise.”

“Perish that thought. And Mrs. Davis is quite the impatient woman and she has been waiting for almost ten minutes now.”

“Ok, ok. Uh, I will look into what I can do about Thor," whenever he has 'free time', "and I guess I will see you around, Natasha.” Without waiting for a response, Tony hung up.

The call to Bruce went pretty similarly with the addition of the physicist’s disbelief in Natasha wanting the Hulk to go around among squishy humans, HYDRA or not.

It came as no surprise when the Avengers comprised only of Clint, Natasha and Steve – and occasionally some guy that Rhodey identified as Sam Wilson as a fellow airman – were unable to keep going without any funding, the distrust and disdain for their arrogance of governments everywhere and soon enough, no one remembered them anymore.

Last Tony heard, Clint went back to a civilian life, it appeared that the man actually had a wife and kids. Natasha went back to her roots in Russia, hopefully a more civilian-friendly career but no one was holding their breath. And by now, away from the Avengers and trying to focus more on his own life, Tony barely felt any curiosity about Cap’s fate. They were all adults and hardly needed Tony to babysit, right?

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the many comments threads in Ana's [The Days Of Reckoning Are Upon Us](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10953375/chapters/24378366) but what really kick started it, was that little tidbit from [Anew](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11985126/chapters/27111240) by IViv.
> 
> Both amazing fics!!
> 
> Fav part written:
> 
> "At the time, Tony could only think that Natasha had some balls. Without SHIELD… hiding her? Whatever they did to clean her record, she was just a former KGB assassin that became a SHIELD assassin which may or may not have contributed to HYDRA plans…yikes. US would truly need to be crazy to just let it all slide."


End file.
